Second Act

Please note that due to software, not all sentences in this transcript will be accurate

Star Wars Episode V teaser trailer

Studio – John Dickson
We’re listening to a clip from the original teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, released back in 1980. It features John Williams’ incredible score and the use of concept art instead of actual film footage; Al has put a link in the show notes for you film buffs! The Empire Strikes Back is considered one of the all-time greatest sequels (as you may know, it was the follow-up to Episode IV—A New Hope … which, of course, was the first Star Wars film to come out).  We’re looking at what is arguably the greatest literary sequel of all time, one that is even more important than the Empire Strikes Back – and it, too, is about rebels and empires. I’m talking about the first-century book The Acts of the Apostles (called ‘Acts’ for short). It’s the sequel to what we call the Gospel according to Luke. Like all the other Gospels, the Gospel of Luke ends on a kind of cliffhanger, with Jesus crucified and raised to life and then appearing to his disciples with marching orders to take this news of Jesus’ life, teaching, healing, arrest, trial, death, resurrection and appearance – what the early church just called ‘the gospel’ – to the whole world. Luke alone of the Gospel writers, decided to write up the account of what happened after Jesus … how these somewhat unimpressive men and women of Judea and Galilee took their gospel throughout the mediterranean world in a matter of just 30 years. The spread of Christianity in the ancient world is a historical mystery. They started with just 100+ Galilean/Judean Jews … and within 20 years, embraced by Syrians in the north, Indo-Europeans in Asia Minor, Greeks and Italians to the west, and Egyptians down south. Within 300 years, Christianity was everywhere among Arabs and Persians, North Africans, the Gauls, Spanish, and Britons. The momentum started in the early period. The book of Acts then isn’t just a rollicking good story of persuasion, service, and suffering; it’s a kind of master key to one of the genuinely important questions of world history: What made Christianity attractive to such vastly different cultures in such a relatively brief time period? How do you go from a Roman crucifixion to a Roman takeover in the historical blink of an eye? And what might that original version of Christian activism teach us today, whether or not we believe in their gospel? To answer all of this … well, have I got the expert guest for you! I’m John Dickson, and this is Undeceptions.

Undeceptions Theme

John Dickson:
What type of literature is the book of acts? Because it could be novel, it could be myth, could be history or something completely different.

Tom Wright:
I think it’s intended to be history, but history in the first century Judean sense. Um, in other words, uh, the same sort of thing that you find, well, in the gospels, but then going back in the books of Kings or whatever. But a first century version of it written by somebody who knows a lot about the wider world than simply, um, the, the, the rather closed circle of the Middle East.

Studio – John Dickson
That’s my guest, Nicholas Thomas Wright – better known professionally as N.T. Wright, or “Tom” to his friends – making his triumphant return to Undeceptions! We last heard from Tom back on episode 122, ‘Political Jesus’. The link is in the show notes as always. Tom’s just published a new book titled The Challenge of Acts: Rediscovering What The Church Was and Is, via our season sponsor Zondervan Academic – it’s a cracker.

Tom Wright:
So, uh, It is clearly intended as history, but again, history in a first-century sense. In doing this history, Luke is making a point about the God who he believes is Lord of history, and what he is up to, and he’s also making a point about this funny fellow Paul, who goes charging off around the world, getting in and out of trouble, and what he’s up to, because I think his history has a very sharp focus. So Luke is focusing particularly on Paul, you know, reporting great speeches and discourses and so on. And the second half of Acts is, is basically an apologia for, for Paul. Whether it’s written during the lifetime of Paul, preparation for his trial, or whether it’s written 30, 40, 50 years later, to explain to people of the time who this fellow was, um, that’s, that’s a separate question, but that’s, that’s the kind of literature it is. History with a purpose.

Studio – John Dickson
The Apostle Paul ends up the main character of Acts; we’re first introduced to him in Chapter 8, when he is known as Saul. We’re told that he’s a “Pharisee of Pharisees” with a murderous vendetta against Christians (when we meet him, he’s just approved the stoning of Stephen, one of the first evangelists). However, after his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus (in Acts 9), Saul mainly goes by Paul. By the way, he probably always had these two names for the two cultures he straddled. Saul was his Hebrew Jewish name, and Paul was his Greco-Roman name. Given most of Paul’s work from the Damascus Road experience onwards was pushing on into the Greco-Roman world, it made sense to mostly go by Paul. The rest of the book of Acts follows Paul’s multi-decade journey as a public advocate for the Christian faith, travelling to strategic cities throughout the Roman Empire and setting up communities of Christians or churches. We’ve done a whole Undeceptions on Paul – Episode 56, ‘Paulos Apostolos’ – headed to the show notes of course. In short, Paul has a dramatic series of adventures throughout Acts: for one thing, he gets beaten up a lot! I think we have to picture Paul as a pretty bruised and battled-hardened man. He’s imprisoned, shipwrecked three times, and smuggled out of cities in baskets … all while preaching sermons to crowds in some of the key cities of the ancient world, culminating in Rome itself (more on that later). The first part of Acts though doesn’t mention Paul at all. The focus at the outset is on the characters already known from Luke’s Gospel – Jesus and his disciples.

READING
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up to heaven after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.  After suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.  While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me;  for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with[c] the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Acts Chapter 1

John Dickson:
How does the Book of Acts relate to the Gospels?

Tom Wright:
Well, uh, I mean, obviously at the beginning of Acts, Luke says, uh, I wrote the earlier book in order to talk about all the things that Jesus began to do and teach. And as many commentators have pointed out, that implies that, uh, I’m now going to tell you what Jesus continued to do and teach, both in the very short interval between his resurrection and the ascension, but also in the sense that Jesus is directing operations from behind the scenes, or above the scenes, or whatever, in the rest of the book as well. And that’s part of the point of the story of the ascension. Jesus has not gone away. He’s gone, um, to sit in the CEO’s office and to, to direct operations from there. And his people are struggling to hear what he’s saying and to put it into, put it into practice. Um, so that, um, the, the relationship then between Acts and Luke’s gospel is very clear. 

Studio – John Dickson
We’ve done an episode on the Gospel authors – Episode 126, ‘Jesus’ Biographies’ with Simon Gathercole. But a quick recap on Luke: traditionally believed to have been a doctor – “the beloved physician”, mentioned by Paul in Colossians chapter 4 – Luke seems to be writing for a non-Jewish audience in a more classic Greco-Roman style. Luke composed his Gospel and Acts around the same time – in the 70s or 80s AD, though there are some who date it to the early 60s because that’s where the narrative he tells stops (with Paul in Rome awaiting trial in about AD 62). Both Luke’s Gospel and his Acts are dedicated to a ‘Theophilus’. The truth is, we don’t know who this person is. But literary conventions of the time would indicate that Theophilus is some kind of local Greco-Roman official who has had some basic instruction about Christianity but who hadn’t settled on a decision about what to do with the Christian faith. Back to Luke, though. How do we know he wrote Acts?

Tom Wright:
Well, we, as with a great deal of ancient literature, we can’t absolutely know for certain who wrote this book, but, um, the earliest traditions of the church said that, um, this particular gospel and the book of Acts were written by the Luke who was a companion of Paul. Now we know about a Luke who was a companion of Paul because Paul mentions him a couple of times and mentions him as a doctor. Um, and People have done learned studies on the way in which Luke writes, and not least his prefaces, and the way in which what he does there reflects both historical practice at the time, but particularly medical practice at the time. So it’s not impossible that the author of Luke and Acts really was a doctor. And, you know, I, I say to people, Occam’s razor is the only razor I’ve used for the last 40 years or so, but it’s still as sharp as ever. In other words, we shouldn’t multiply inessential things. Um, and it, you know, it’s perfectly just like, The joke was about Old Testament scholarship that some scholar came up with the theory that it wasn’t Moses who led the children of Israel out of Egypt. It was his cousin who had the same name. Then you think, uh, wait a minute, something’s fishy here. And in the same way we could say, well, of course it wasn’t Luke who wrote Acts. Uh, it was somebody else who the early church thought was called Luke and who seems to have known quite a lot about Paul and, um, may well have had an interest in medicine, et cetera. Um, hang on. Why not say, the simplest solution is likely to be the best? 

Studio – John Dickson
Luke’s historical approach means we can cross-check some of what he is writing about. Mentions of the titles of officials, administrative divisions, town assemblies, the rules of Second Temple Judaism, and Roman laws all hold up well in Acts. But we also have supernatural events. And one of my favourites has some external verification. In chapter 12, the apostle James (brother of John – the two sons of Zebedee from the Gospels) is beheaded by a king Herod. Now, Luke expects you to know which Herod he’s talking about. It’s not Herod the Great (whom we meet at Jesus’ birth and who slaughtered infants of Bethlehem). Nor is it that guy’s son, Herod Antipas (who interviewed Jesus at his trial). No, in Acts 12, it’s Herod Agrippa I (grandson of Herod Great via one of his other sons, Aristobulus). This Aristobulus, by the way, was killed by Herod Great on suspicion of plotting a coup. So, our “Herod (Agrippa I)” grew up in a family where grandpa killed dad! It can’t have been good for his soul. And here we see just how damaged his soul was!! He threw a bunch of Christians in prison, including the apostle Peter, and he “had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.” That’s at the start of Acts 12. By the end of Acts 12, Herod Agrippa comes to his own brutal end. It sounds miraculous, but we know this is basically what happened. Block your ears if you’re squeamish:

READING 

Then Herod went from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there. He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon; they now joined together and sought an audience with him. After securing the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king’s country for their food supply. On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died. But the word of God continued to spread and flourish. 

Acts chapter 12

John Dickson:
I want to ask you some, um, uh, historical questions. In Acts 12, for example, we’re told that, uh, one of the Herods, um, Agrippa one, uh, executed James Zebedee – then by the end of the chapter suffered his own gruesome, uh, death. What can we make of that, Historically speaking?

Tom Wright:
younger contemporary of Paul Josephus tells us about, um, Herod Aripper first putting on this great royal robe, which was designed to reflect the ray of the sun and make him look as though he was divine. Um, and, and that Josephus, um, says that a terrible plague came upon him and, and he died as a result. And Josephus clearly seems to be telling that story as Um, a good judean, um, to say, well, if you play it being a pagan, don’t be surprised if the gods come after you for hubris, and that that’s what’s going on.

Studio – John Dickson
Tom’s talking about Flavius Josephus, the great first-century Jewish historian who worked in the employ of Roman Emperors Vespasian and Titus. He’s become a bit of a favourite here at Undeceptions (and we really should do an episode on him). Here’s how he records the same Herod’s death.

READING 

Now when Agrippa had reigned three years over all Judea, he came to the city Cesarea; which was formerly called Strato’s tower. And there he exhibited shows, in honour of Cesar, upon his being informed that there was a certain festival celebrated to make vows for his safety. At which festival a great multitude was gotten together, of the principal persons, and such as were of dignity through his province. On the second day of which shows, he put on a garment made wholly of silver, and of a contexture truly wonderful; and came into the theater early in the morning.
…. And presently his flatterers cried out, one from one place, and another from another; (though not for his good;) that “He was a God.” And they added, “Be thou merciful to us. For although we have hitherto reverenced thee only as a man, yet shall we henceforth own thee as superior to mortal nature.” Upon this the King did neither rebuke them, nor reject their impious flattery. But as he presently afterward looked up, he saw an owl, sitting on a certain rope, over his head: and immediately understood that this bird was the messenger of ill tidings, as it had once been the messenger of good tidings to him: and fell into the deepest sorrow. A severe pain also arose in his belly; and began in a most violent manner. He therefore looked upon his friends, and said, “I, whom you call a god, am commanded presently to depart this life:
…. And when he had been quite worn out by the pain in his belly for five days, he departed this life.

‘Antiquities of the Jews’, Book  19

Tom Wright:
Luke, I think, tells the same true story about this, this Herod, um, having this megalomaniac streak and so that he makes this great speech and the public shout out the voice of a God, not of a man, the voice of God, not of a man. And it’s as though. Uh, we’ve seen in Acts chapter one, Jesus exalted and hailed as, um, uh, effectively as at one with the father, as the one who’s gone to the father’s right hand, as in the book of Daniel. In other words, Jesus has this divinity. And the first 12 chapters of Acts end with somebody else who thinks he’s king of the Jews and who is giving himself out to be divine and comes to a bad end. And then says Luke, but the Word of God carried right on. In other words, if this was a contest, guess who won. In terms of Acts 12 itself, again, there may be something to be said for reading Acts 12 in terms of Herod killing James and then discovering he’s overreached himself. I think Luke will be very much aware there of the fact that, um, James isn’t around to see this vindication. James has been killed. Um, so the gospel is not about everybody who might be being killed being rescued. Um, the gospel is about suffering. It’s about carrying the cross. It’s about being prepared for martyrdom in the name of Jesus. But, as with the great Judean martyrdom stories that, that he was drawing on or aware of, um, God will be vindicated and will vindicate his people and take his purposes forward, even though some of his people will suffer this terrible fate in the process.

Studio – John Dickson:
Another historical character who pops up in Acts is a man named Gallio, the brother of the famous Stoic writer Seneca. According to Acts, Gallio was the proconsul (a governor) of the Roman province of Achaia, part of modern-day Greece … I took a bunch of students and tourists there just a few weeks ago. We’re told in Acts 18 that Paul was arrested by the Jews of Corinth and brought before Gallio on the charge of preaching an anti-Roman message. For years, historians were free to dismiss this as a historical inaccuracy; Gallio, it was believed, wasn’t in Corinth! Luke is perhaps free-wheeling. All that changed with a random discovery of an inscription at Delphi in 1905: on it was the fragment of a public letter from Emperor Claudius which mentioned “Gallio, my friend and proconsul”. Gallio was proconsul of this region – and actually, the inscription helps us date many of the events of Paul’s life and letters! I was there just last month – here’s me chatting to my students

John Dickson chatting to students in Greece

Tom Wright:
Suddenly, we know pretty well exactly when Paul was in Corinth because Gallio was there in the early fifties. And it looks as though Gallio probably did somewhere just under a two year tour of duty there. And it looks as though Paul was there perhaps towards the end of Gallio’s time. But we can, we Therefore, date Paul’s journeys and say, guess what? Here it is. Paul in Corinth in the early fifties. So probably he’s in those early travels in the late forties. And I date that as the time when Paul also writes Galatians. That’s a whole other story. Um, and then Paul comes around the Mediterranean, misses out Ephesus on the first journey, but, um, does Philippi, Thessalonica down to Athens and Corinth. And then we have that extraordinary scene, where Paul is hauled up in front of Gallio, and historically speaking, and I came to this late, I think I came to it through your Australian colleague Bruce Winter, who, who pointed out, that when Galio says, ‘nothing to see here, you Christians are simply a subset of Judaism’, that means, oh my goodness, for the first time, a pagan official has given the Christian movement a clean bill of health, which means that Christianity can spread in southern Greece. Thank you very much. What I then explore in this book, as you’ll have seen, is the unexpected consequence of that, that the Corinthian letters are the only letters, which don’t have anything to do with persecution, except Paul’s own persecution, which of course, the Corinthians who aren’t being persecuted, they look down their noses at Paul. Oh, silly old Paul, he’s a jailbird and gets himself shipwrecked and goodness knows what, um, not like us. We’re kings, we’re super, we’re on top of the tree. Um, and so what we see very interestingly is not only a historical anchor, but also a big question mark for when the church gets too comfortable.

Studio – John Dickson
Paul’s journeys around the Mediterranean could only have happened because of the Pax Romana – the “Roman Peace” – which allowed people to travel throughout the vast Empire … on a pretty good network of roads and with relatively safe shipping lanes. Paul does three ‘tours’ in Acts – three missionary journeys – clocking up something like 10,000 miles as he preached and established little communities from Syria to Turkey to Greece. We’ve put a great picture in the show notes that shows a map of Paul’s journeys – he certainly had ‘platinum sailor status’! Paul’s status as a Roman citizen also granted him certain protections … in theory. Being on the wrong side of a conquering Roman army was an awful experience – but once conquered, everyday life could actually be okay (if you survived the conquering). The Romans were fairly liberal. They granted citizenship to certain people living within the Empire’s borders. Citizens could not be bound nor beaten when arrested and were also protected from floggings and crucifixion (unless they had committed treason). Paul had these protections, but used them only rarely … Like in Philippi, where he and Timothy and Silas were arrested, stripped, and beaten.

READING 

When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order: “Release those men.”  The jailer told Paul, “The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace.” But Paul said to the officers: “They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out.” 

Acts Chapter 16

John Dickson:
A big part of the second half of Acts is really Paul’s entanglement with the with Roman officials. Um, he’s interviewed by Governor Felix, then Festus, then he appeals to Caesar, and it’s all around him being a Roman citizen. Now, I don’t want to get into the weeds of Roman law, but I do just want to get your take on the significance of Paul’s status as a Roman citizen. What did this mean for how he was treated and what ended up happening to him?

Tom Wright:
Yeah, I mean, about a century before Paul’s day, uh, there was a very famous, uh, legal case with, um, uh, sorry, I’m losing the name, but you will remember him, in the governor of Sicily, who, who Cicero, uh, Cicero prosecuted, uh, Veres, that’s right, Veres was a high ranking noble Roman who went off after serving his, his office years in Rome, went off to be governor of Sicily and absolutely, um, robbed the place, um, you know, bled it white, as we sayUm, he, he stole all sorts of stuff. And when people objected, he had them done away with, including one man who he had crucified And as he was being crucified, this man was shouting, Civis Romanissum, I’m a Roman citizen. And this sent shockwaves. When Cicero revealed this in court, it sent shockwaves through the whole city. You know, sorry, you don’t do that to Roman citizens. And ever since then, and you can see this reflected through acts, the very mention that somebody is a Roman citizen is Oh, be careful. You touch him and Caesar is not going to be pleased. And we see this particularly at the end of Acts 16, when Paul is in Philippi, when suddenly he plays the citizen card. Um, during the riot the previous day, he hadn’t seemingly had a chance to do that.

 John Dickson:
It’s hard to do when you’re being beaten up.

Tom Wright:
Its hard to do when you’re being beaten up, exactly. But then, uh, then he plays the citizen, and it’s a, it’s a passage I like, actually, uh, uh, because part of, I think, what Luke is, is saying, which the early Christians took very seriously, is that it’s, the, the followers of Jesus have the vocation to speak the truth to power, to, to put the powers that be in their place, to say, no, sorry, you’re getting this wrong. So, And I imagine the scene at the end of Act 16, when the magistrates send word to the jail saying, let those men go free, tell them to get out of town. And I can imagine Silas and Timothy saying to Paul, look, can we just leave town now? We just don’t know what’s going to happen. And Paul says, no, no, no, no. Roman citizen arrested without trial, beaten without charge, imprisoned overnight, public apology. And he gets it because they know Same thing back in Jerusalem, when he’s about to be tortured to find out what he’s done. And he says, um, Are you allowed to do this to a Roman citizen? And immediately there’s a sort of shock, horror, we’re all going to get into trouble here. And they all know that. And Luke knows that and Luke’s readers know that. So Paul is quite happy to play that. Of course, there are some today who say, um, that that’s very wicked of Paul because the Roman Empire was a wicked thing and he shouldn’t have colluded with it. I think, give me a break, you know, this is, this is the real politik and I think Paul is quite happy to say when the time had fully come, God sent forth his son, the Roman Empire seems to be there no doubt to get in the way and mess us up and kill us from time to time, but also to facilitate God’s work. So let’s ride that train and see where we go.

John Dickson:
Yes. And I mean, I, I’m sure part of Paul’s motivation in Philippi was to give cover to the fledgling church

Tom Wright:
Sure. Sure. Yeah.

John Dickson:
So that they could maybe be preserved from persecution.

Tom Wright:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. They’ve got, they’ve got friends in high places. So watch out.I mean, it is a question as to, as to why he doesn’t play the card in Thessalonica, for instance. Um, but, you know, again, if there’s a riot suddenly going on, and I don’t think Paul swaggered into town saying, I’m a Roman citizen, you better listen to me. It was a card he kept up his sleeve, ready to play if need be.

Studio – John Dickson
The book of Acts tells us the main characters and places of Christian missionary activity. It also tells us how things went—sometimes well, sometimes not so much. 

**BREAK 1**

Clip –  How not to share the Gospel

Studio – John Dickson
That’s a great video by the pastor Jason Powell, satirising an over-zealous Christian visiting a local cafe and engaging in some evangelism. To be clear – evangelism is great: I think of it as beggars telling other beggars where we found bread! But this tone-deaf style of doing it doesn’t often get far! There’s a lot of open-air preaching in Acts. But that’s because this was a norm in the cities of the ancient world. Synagogues and marketplaces were great places for teaching and debate. And one of the interesting features of the book of Acts is the way the key messengers knew how to moderate their message in a variety of cultural settings, Jewish, Greek, or Roman. I wanted to ask Tom Wright about this. 

John Dickson:
I want to talk about how Christians, according to the book of Acts, framed their message to different cultures, because that’s one of the wonderful things we have in the book of Acts. We see them trying to convey Christianity to the Jews, then to the Greeks, then to the Romans. So can you give me a sense of how they framed their message in the book of Acts? First to the Jews.

Tom Wright:
Yeah, um, the the main thing that the early Christians wanted to get across to their Judean contemporaries was that this Jesus of Nazareth, who everyone had heard of, but not everybody knew that much about, that he of course had been crucified, everybody knew that, but that he had been raised from the dead, and he was Israel’s messiah and was lord of the world the israel’s messiah, but is so important because paul’s appeal Uh, peter’s appeal and the appeal of the whole early church to the judean population in jerusalem then further afield was he’s the one You’ve been waiting for um, so this is not a new religion This is the fulfillment of the promises and that is so vitally important so that half of Peter’s great speech on the day of Pentecost is precisely going back through the prophets and saying, this is what they were talking about all along. And of course, we know from all sorts of sources that there were many in the, in the world of the first century Judea who had been reading prophecies and calculating when Daniel’s Um, 490 years was going to be fulfilled, as in Daniel 9. When is the great time of exile going to be undone? When will God liberate his people at last? And so the early Christians are coming in on that tide and saying, It’s happened, guys. It may not look like you thought it was going to, but God has done it by exalting his Messiah, his Son. And there’s quotes from 2 Samuel 7, from Psalm 2, etc, etc. So he is now the Lord of the world. And so on the edge of the announcement to Judeans is also the hint that if this really is the case, then think of Psalm 2, think of Psalm 89, think of Psalm 72, think of Isaiah 49, when Israel’s Messiah shows up, he’s going to be the Lord of the whole world. So now watch, watch what’s going to happen next. So that’s the message to the Judeans, and therefore a call to repent, because Deep within the Judean tradition, at the end of Deuteronomy, you’ve got the prediction of the long exile to come, but then, if when that’s happened, you turn back to the Lord with all your heart and soul, He will restore you. So the appeal to repent is not just, I know you’ve all done some naughty things and God wants you to say sorry, though no doubt that’s true as well, but this is the great moment for repentance with a capital R, for Israel to turn back from its ways and embrace the long exile. the new way which God has produced in fulfillment of the promises.

Studio – John Dickson
You can hear more about the “Jewishness” of early Christianity in Episode 117 ‘Jewish Jesus’ with podcast regular George Athas. Link in the show notes! But what is fascinating to me is the way Paul was equally at home in a Jewish synagogue and the Greek high court of ideas. And this ability of Paul left us with one of the most interesting ancient speeches ever given. 

Clip – Rocky Balboa 

Studio – John Dickson
That, of course, was Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa in the sixth instalment of the Rocky franchise – that film is just called Rocky Balboa. (Director Mark watches it every day before work). Rocky’s “take the hits” speech is often listed as one of the great speeches in cinematic history, alongside the likes of William Wallace in Braveheart, or Aragorn in Return of the King … Great events can often hinge on a great speech. That’s the case with Acts, Paul left us a truly great speech in chapter 17. Athens was the mental centre of the Greek world—it’s where Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle had taught. And in Paul’s day, it was still a magnet for the best (and worst) thinking. Ian Worthington at my alma mater Macquarie University writes of Athens: “It was its status as a cultural and intellectual juggernaut that enticed Romans to the city, some to visit, others to study. The Romans might have been the ones doing the conquering, but in adapting aspects of Hellenism for their own cultural and political needs, they were the ones, as the poet Horace claimed, who ended up being captured.” Paul coming to Athens was always going to be a big moment in this sequel. It came after arrests, riots, and beatings. Here’s how Luke segues to the scene.

READING

When the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea as well, they came there, too, to stir up and incite the crowds. Then the brothers and sisters immediately sent Paul away to the coast, but Silas and Timothy remained behind. Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and, after receiving instructions to have Silas and Timothy join him as soon as possible, they left him.

Acts Chapter 17

John Dickson:
I want to ask you about his speech in Athens. Um, in Athens, you know, sort of the intellectual center of the Greek world, you know, it inherited so much from, you know, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and so on. Um, we have one really lovely speech from Paul directly to that Greek intellectual context. Can you tell us what, what do we learn about the framing of Christianity to the Greek mind specifically?

 

Tom Wright:
It’s, it’s one of the most fascinating, um, chapters in the New Testament, which is why every time I’ve written about Acts, I’ve had to spend twice as long on Act 17 as on anything else, because it’s so much there. It’s as though Luke has, concentrated it densely and of course we should say it takes about two and a half to three minutes to read Paul’s speech out in Greek and, and you’re not going to tell me that when Paul is faced with the highest court in the most famous city in his world that he’s only going to speak for two and a half minutes this is obviously a condensed version of what I suspect will have been a good hours discourse. The other thing to say by way of preliminary is that it isn’t an apology in the modern sense of apologetics, where in a post deist world, people try to convince one another that there is a God or that Jesus really is who he said he was, whatever. This is, uh, Paul’s speech for the defense, because the Areopagus is not a philosophical debating society, though it may have had those overtones. It was the highest court in the land, and it had been founded, according to the legend in Aeschylus play, The Amenities, founded by, uh, Apollo and Athene jointly, in order to try the terrible case of poor Orestes, who had been told by Apollo to murder his mother, because she had murdered his father, But then the Furies are pursuing him. So all this is really important because, um, Paul is talking about God’s justice. And the court of the Areopagus was founded in order to be the pinnacle of justice, the place on the face of the earth where you could get justice. And Athene makes sure that it’s justice tempered with mercy. And all of that is bubbling along in the back. People knew that play, they knew the legend, they knew that ‘we are the heirs of this great story’.

Studio – John Dickson
When Paul was in Athens, two philosophical schools were dominant (with a possible third). The Stoics believed there was a universal Mind behind all of Nature. And our goal was to conform the logos of our minds with the logos of the ultimate mind. This often involved moderating everything, curbing passions, and avoiding both ecstasy and sorrow. The Epicureans took a very different approach. They said you shouldn’t worry about the gods. Maybe they exist. Who knows. But if they do, they’re not into us. So, don’t fret about Gods. Don’t fret about pain. Just try find your path to honourable pleasures – great food and friends and conversation. From these guys came the Skeptics, people like Lucretius who taught: There’s probably no god worth worrying about, so get on with your life. In Athens, Paul had to find a way to interact with these great philosophical traditions, especially Stoicism and Epicureanism. 

Tom Wright:
So Paul comes along and he is accused of preaching foreign divinities, which, haha, another 5th century memory. That was part of what Socrates was accused of and was found guilty of. So, had to drink the hemlock and bye bye Socrates. Um, and again, everybody knew that. This stuff is living in the Athenian memory. So, if Paul is in town preaching about foreign divinities, well, we need to take you up to the court. And when it says they took him up, the word, the Greek word there, it isn’t inviting him to give a seminar at next Friday’s, um, uh, session of the philosophical club. It’s, it’s, you’re coming with us now, we’re going to the court and we will try you to see what’s, what it’s all about.

So then the, the, the, the, one of the fascinating things about it is that Paul immediately begins and you see, this isn’t just a. Uh, a way of cozying up to their local culture by saying I’ve seen you’ve got this altar to the unknown god It’s it’s coming out right from the start and saying of course i’m not talking about a foreign god You’ve already got an altar to an unknown god and i’m just telling you about who he is Um, and that that’s a brilliant move granted that context and many modern christian readers miss that altogether but then what paul then does is to navigate his way between the different competing philosophical options of the time, where the Stoics thought that God was in everything, and everything was in God. The Epicureans thought there was a great gulf between the gods up there somewhere, and us down here, and never the twain shall meet. And the academics, um, the bit of the Platonic school that was around at the time, Um, it was about to turn into middle platonism, but I don’t think Paul is dealing with that. They think well there’s probably something going on there, but we haven’t got enough evidence to be sure. So Paul basically says yes to the Stoics God is around. He is everywhere. We are his offspring, but He is not the same as the world. We owe him allegiance. He gives us all that we need but he then wants us to relate to him, um, not just because he’s in us, et cetera. Um, so yes, but no to the Stoics and no, but yes to the Epicureans. God is very different from us, but he does want to be in relation to us. And then to the academics, he says, yeah, okay, there have been times of ignorance and God has just said, okay, enough of that. I am now telling you the fresh evidence that if you are good philosophers, you ought to be very glad to receive. And so, Paul turns the tables, and instead of just being the defendant on this charge of preaching foreign gods, he actually then effectively tells them the Judean message, the Old Testament message, about how idols and shrines are a waste of space. And anyone who thinks Paul is playing nice to the local culture, just stand on the Areopagus and look up at the Parthenon and the Temple of Nike and so on, and then hear Paul saying, ah, all these temples, they’re a category mistake. You think, um, everyone is thinking, how dare he? That’s some of the, best architecture you’ll ever see anywhere and that’s true, but but paul says no they’re they’re just not where it’s at And so then the judean message comes through there is a God who is the creator and he has fixed a day On which he is going to put the world, right? Upstaging even the court of the areopagus. There is a court Hosted by the God who made heaven and earth, and this God has given assurance of his coming, putting everything right by raising his son from the dead, and his son is going to be the one who will administer this justice and put everything right at last.

FIVE MINUTE JESUS
Let’s press pause – I’ve got a Five Minute Jesus for you.
Actually, I don’t. Today’s Five Minute Jesus comes from the Apostle Paul. His speech in Athens is so important, how about we hear the whole thing, delivered by our wonderful voice actor Yannick Lowry.

READING

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ 

Studio – John Dickson
That’s a quote from the third-century BC Stoic philosopher Cleanthes

READING 

As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 

Studio – John Dickson

And that’s from the third-century poet-philosopher Aratus.
READING

“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 3Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

Acts Chapter 17

Tom Wright:
So it’s a spectacular piece of rhetoric, dealing with the criminal charge supposedly, navigating through the philosophies, turning the tables, and saying then at the end of it, what you pagans really need is the Jewish, the Jewish message, the Judean message, and here it is, and it’s sharp edge is God is calling you to repent. So, interestingly, he ends up with the call to repent, just like Peter did on the day of Pentecost. But whereas a Judean would hear that in terms of the end of Deuteronomy or whatever. For Paul, it’s basically you pagans need to repent of your idolatry. You’ve been worshipping idols, and as we know from 1 Thessalonians, this is Christian Discipleship 101, you turned from idols to serve a living God. So, um, it, it’s amazing.

John Dickson:
It is If we had more time, I’d love to ask you what you make of the fact that Paul would cite, uh, Cleanthe’s hymn to Zeus and Aratus’s hymn to the stars. I mean, it’s high-risk strategy, right? Um, modern evangelicals would get him into trouble for doing that.

Tom Wright:
That might, that might well be, but you know, this, this is the local culture, but also I think there’s a really important point there, which is in 2nd Corinthians 10, where Paul says we take every thought captive to obey the Messiah, so here is a hymn to Zeus, well of course I didn’t believe in Zeus, but But, somebody there is reaching out to something which is really important. We, because we are creational monotheists, we can take that energy and that half hearted attempt at something and show how it fits in with the larger scheme. This is the thing. It’s not about comparative religion. It’s about the claim of the whole Old Testament and Judean tradition to be about the God who made heaven and earth. And, and so, you know, when I read, when I read Stoics, um, like, like old Epictetus, I, I have a sort of sense that if Paul had met Epictetus, they might well have shaken hands on some things. Epictetus was a, was a prayerful guy who loved the, the being he called God, even though He was a Stoic at heart. Um, so, so there’s all sorts of stuff going on. And I think Paul is not gonna, um, you know, quench a smoldering flax on stuff like that

Studio – John Dickson
This idea that there is truth in other belief systems is sometimes frowned upon in certain Christian traditions. Some insist that all the other religions are a big ‘no’ to reality; they’re a way of denying God, rather than reaching out to Him. An early book of mine almost didn’t get published over this very question. The senior editor held the view that religiosity (other than Christianity) was avoidance of the truth, not a groping after the truth. And one offending paragraph—which I didn’t want to budge on—almost tanked the whole project. Here’s the paragraph:

The human family is designed for connection with the divine. Every single society about which anthropologists and historians know anything significant has made ‘spirituality’ a key compo­nent of their cultural life. Australian Aborigines, New Zealand Maoris, native Americans, pre-Anglo Celts, marauding Goths, nomadic Mongols and modern Chardonnay-yuppies—every one of them has been, or is, conspicuously ‘religious’. It is worth reflecting on this for a moment. Talk of God is, in the truest meaning of the phrase, ‘common sense.’ Like the human fascination with art and music, or our desire for social organisation and personal intimacy, the question of God is one of the few universally shared premises of humanity throughout time. It is common sense. 

For the editor, religions aren’t in any sense positive things like art or music; they’re sinful attempts to avoid the truth about God. It’s a view often associated with the great German theologian Karl Barth, who said a big NEIN to the spiritual inclinations of humanity. But the view I was trying to express is certainly the mainstream Christian view. In modern times, it was JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis who championed the idea that many of the great myths of humanity contain kernels of truth, which are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In fact, this was one of the key arguments Tolkien employed to convince Lewis about Christianity. Lewis was complaining that some core Christian ideas were also found in Greek myths and Norse legends—this diminished Christianity, in Lewis’ view. But Tolkien showed Lewis that Christ is the great myth made fact. He is the true myth. Check out Episode 81 ‘Lewis’ Oxford’ for more about that! More to the point, this is exactly the case the first public intellectuals made to the Greco-Roman world in the first few centuries. St Augustine, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, Justin Martyr—they all pointed out that Greek and Roman philosophy and religion contain nuggets of truth that are more fully revealed in Jesus Christ. And they learned this approach from … none other than the apostle Paul’s speech in Athens. Paul quoted a hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes and another hymn to the stars by Aratus. And he made the point that these ancient Greek thinkers had stumbled on a truth which had been partly obscured by all their other speculations. That truth, Paul insisted, has been fully revealed in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Oh … and I’m happy to report that, after some heavyweight theological mediation, and some humility on the part of my editor, to be honest, my offending paragraph made the book. “Like the human fascination with art and music, or our desire for social organisation and personal intimacy, the question of God is one of the few universally shared premises of humanity throughout time. It is common sense.”

*BREAK 2*

Clip – My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Studio – John Dickson
That’s a clip from Youtuber Bryan Seeker, talking about the runaway success of the 2002 classic My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The film never hit the number one spot for Box Office takings, but it was a “sleeper hit”, growing slowly and consistently. They made the film for $5m—which is nothing by normal standards. By the end of its official run, it had grossed nearly $370 million. It’s one of the top rom-coms of the 21st century. How did it achieve this? Not with huge ad buys or big name celebrities, but through a grassroots, bottom up, organic process. Way back in 1978, Charles Powell, a senior vice president at Universal, told the New York Times that “With sexy ad lines or a big star and enough expenditure of money, I can buy an opening week. I can create an awareness of a film. But that first‐week audience is only a base.” “The only thing that makes a film successful or unsuccessful,” he added, “is word of mouth”. He went on to suggest that everyone should share Undeceptions with a friend and leave a review at Apple Podcasts. It was prescient of him. So, how did Christianity spread so far so quickly? One thing’s for sure—it wasn’t through big ad buys or celebrity culture. It was the quintessential grassroots bottom-up success story.

READING 

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts Chapter 2 

John Dickson:
It’s been a mystery to so many ancient historians why Christianity spread in the first three centuries. Do you reckon we have clues in the Book of Acts?

Tom Wright:
We do have clues in the book of Acts. I, I read backwards into Acts from the book, which I still recommend to students from 30 years ago or nearly, Rodney Stark’s book, The Rise of Christianity. You know, because when I studied the early church, um, 50 plus years ago here in Oxford, nobody ever told me that the reason Christianity spread was that old Mrs. So and so down the road would come and nurse a sick person when they were suffering from plague or that, um, these two or three people, quite poor themselves, would take in other poor people or would make sure that they got fed. And when people said, why are you doing this? doing that people don’t do that in this world they’d say we follow this man called Jesus this is how he lived this is how he taught us to live and in other words I admire and revere Arrhenius, Tertullian, Cyprian and these great figures of the early church and theologians but Christianity is spread not by huge ideas being passed from one great brain to another but by very ordinary sermon on the mount shaped people doing sermon on the mount shaped things at grassroots level and people saying didn’t know you could live like that. And some of the hints of this in Acts, one of my favorite ones is in Acts 11 and 12 when there’s a prophet shows up in Antioch who says there’s going to be a famine. It’s going to be right across the known world, um, what we call the known world. And you know, we know they had famines from time to time, like they had earthquakes from time to time and, and plagues from time to time. But the Christians in Antioch, um, Immediately say who is going to be at risk here answer those poor fellow believers in jerusalem now Hang on those believers in jerusalem. They’re judeans They don’t even approve of you people in antioch because you have judeans and gentiles Eating at the same table and they don’t like that We don’t mind that, for goodness sake. Um, they are our brothers in the Messiah, they are our fellow, uh, fellow believers. Therefore, we’re going to collect money here, and we’re going to send it to Jerusalem. Now, the only other contexts in the ancient world, where people might collect money in one place to send to another place, uh, to, to people who they weren’t, uh, immediately in contact with, would be within the larger Jewish communities, that the worldwide Judean communities would send money, not least to Jerusalem. But here we have a picture of a multi ethnic, multi colored, multilingual group, um, 500 miles away to the north, quite happy doing their own thing, immediately recognizing something is going on, they’re going to be at risk, we can help. How can we do it? Who should we send? And, and, and because we are so used to people collecting for charities and sending off money to help starving children in Africa or whatever it is. And goodness knows we need to figure out even better ways of doing that. We sort of think, oh yes, that’s what they do. But actually, this was unheard of in the ancient world. And the idea, therefore, of the whole Christian movement, the way as they called it, being an utterly counter cultural institution is, is baked in from the start. And then when we stop and think, um, through the lens of something like Galatians 3, hang on these are communities of, Neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, no male and female. Well, as we know from the culture of the time, people are very wary when small groups or middle sized groups of people are getting together behind closed doors, especially if they have men and women in there together. Oh yeah, what’s going on? And then we discover they have slaves as well as free. Come on now, we can’t do that. That’s letting the side down. And then, from the Judean point of view, They have Gentiles coming in as well, and you’re able to sit and eat with them. This is unheard of. And the answer is they are modeling the new family, and when asked why, they tell the story of Jesus and his death and resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit. So, etched into Acts, from the end of Acts 2, where you have this description of the church, the apostles teaching and fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayers, right the way through to the communities that come from Rome to meet Paul as he’s in the last stages of his journey. There is this sense of a new family, a family unlike anything the world had seen before. We in the modern West, because we have tried to think of Christianity as a religion, oh it’s like other religions, then we miss this point. It’s a family like no other family at the time. And actually I would say, like no family Even now, and that’s the thing that makes it so attractive, made it and makes it so attractive, even when people were trying to stamp it out.

Clip – Sam Chan on Undeceptions

Studio – John Dickson
That’s Dr Dr Sam Chan (yes, double doctor), speaking from the wayback machine in Episode 33, ‘Danger: Proselytising’. The evangelistic streak of the first Christians can make many uncomfortable. But it’s everywhere in the book of Acts, so I asked Tom about it.  

John Dickson:
What would you say to people who look at the Book of Acts, and indeed the history of the church, as clearly a missionary religion trying to proselytize, and think the whole Show feels imperialistic, trying to force your view on other people. What’s your sense of that criticism?

Tom Wright:
Yeah, uh, one has heard this so often, of course, and indeed. We’ve had, um, this is not an aside, you’ll see the point. We’ve had a huge debate in Britain this last week about the whole, quote, assisted dying, unquote, matter of whether we should have legislation that allows for, um, doctors and judges to say, yes, this person, we, we must help them commit suicide. And every time Christians speak on this subject and actually every time muslims speak on this subject as well the mainstream secularists say don’t try and shove your religion down our throat now of course the proper answer to that is excuse me you’re shoving your secularism or your epicureanism or your cynicism down our throat um who gave you the right to do that but this idea that there is a neutral space with just ordinary people who don’t have any prejudices and then here’s a religion with its point of view trying to … you know, that’s just naive. Anyone who knows anything about the modern world, let alone the ancient world, would see that it’s always a question of competing narratives, competing claims, competing values, and then it’s a question of which of these narratives and claims and values is making sense of the world of human life, etc. And so the Christians don’t force their ideas on people, they live it out in terms of here’s a community living in a different way and when people see and think that’s really attractive. And as Rodney Stark points out, especially women who were treated as very much second or worst class citizens in the ancient world, when they see that women are valued, look at the way Paul treats and writes and speaks about. women in his communities. They are valued, they are equal partners, they are part of the team. And what’s more, because the Christians didn’t expose unwanted babies, especially girls, there were far more Christian women around in the ancient world than there were pagan women, which is why there’s Many, um, Pagan men ended up marrying Christian wives, and then the Christian wives would either convert them, or at least insist that the children were brought up as Christians. And, and, these stories are not well known in the Western world today, because they don’t fit the modern Western perception of Christianity, as you say, an imperialistic religion. Of course, there is a sense in which the language they used about Jesus is the language of  Empire. He is the lord of all. But then you say, so what does this lordship consist of? And they show you a cross. And you think, uh, excuse me, it’s not what we mean by lordship. Ah, well, it is what we mean by lordship and here’s how it works out. So I think ultimately the best answer to that is Modern secularist critique, uh, critique reading of Acts or whatever, is, is to say just have a look at the real church, being the real church, and see what it does. Ask yourself why it is that when times are hard, as they’ve been with financial crises and so on, almost all the food banks in my country are hosted by churches. Now, we might say if the churches didn’t exist someone else would get on and do it. They probably would. But that’s just one small example of many other things where the churches have always done education, medicine, and care of the poor. These are not modern innovations. That’s been the DNA from the start. And that’s what then when people talk about Jesus as Lord, Oh, that’s what you mean. Oh, well, that’s quite interesting

Studio – John Dickson
After all the action of the book of Acts – international travel, beatings, imprisonments, shipwrecks, large scale conversions of Jews, Greeks, and Romans – Luke ends his account of the first 30 years of Christianity abruptly and seemingly anti-climactically. Or does he …

READING 

When we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with the soldier who was guarding him. Three days later he called together the local leaders of the Jews. When they had assembled, he said to them, “Brothers, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our ancestors, yet I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans. When they had examined me, the Romans wanted to release me because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case. But when the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to the emperor—even though I had no charge to bring against my people.  For this reason therefore I asked to see you and speak with you, since it is for the sake of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.” They replied, “We have received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken anything evil about you.  But we would like to hear from you what you think, for with regard to this sect we know that everywhere it is spoken against.”

….

For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!

 Acts Chapter 28

Tom Wright:
I come back again and again to the possibility, and I would put it at least as high as a 35 or 40 percent possibility, that Acts is written as a document to explain to people in Rome in general and possibly legal advisors around the emperor when Paul comes to trial, explain exactly what this strange new movement is about and why this fellow Paul seems to be at the sharp end of this movement, and particularly to explain that yes, we know that Paul has been in trouble from here and there, everywhere St. Paul went there was a riot. But actually the local magistrates always came and apologized or told the crowd that it was their fault or whatever. And particularly The Roman, uh, either magistrates or leading soldiers in Jerusalem and on the boat across the Mediterranean, et cetera, they were doing their best to protect Paul. And this, one of the agendas seems to be actually Paul is innocent and of any charges that might be thrown at him. People have tried to stick mud on him and it just hasn’t worked. And again and again, it’s been good, solid, old fashioned Roman justice that’s come to the aid and got him out of trouble. And I just see this building up as though. Luke is ending with dot dot dot. Therefore, even though you may find this man to be a nuisance and you may know that there have been indeed riots wherever he’s gone, nevertheless, actually Roman justice ought to say, fair enough, you haven’t done anything wrong. Um, you can go free. The frustrating thing, of course, um, as I, I think it was Oscar Wilde when he was doing his oral examination here at Oxford. I don’t know if you know this story, but Oscar Wilde, that he was, um, he was supposed to have studied the book of acts in Greek and in his oral examination, they, they gave him, um, uh, a bit towards the end of acts to translate Viva Voce in front of the examiners. And so he translated a few paragraphs and they said, um, that’s quite enough. Thank you. And he said, no, no, I want to go on. I want to know what happened to the fellow. In other words, he hadn’t done any homework at all, but his Greek was very good. But, I mean, Acts leaves us with that feeling, we want to know what happened to the fellow. Um, and I think the answer then is that Luke is not telling a biography of Paul. He is using this, um, the, the, the sort of starting point of what was Christianity all about. So the first 12 chapters give you that basis. And then we’re focused on Paul largely from there on and why he got into trouble and so on. Um, but, but it’s, it’s all aimed at saying, so therefore now, we’ve got to this point. Let’s hope and pray that Roman justice will see us through. So the book is really the story, not of Paul, but of the gospel and the gospel has got to Rome. So if anyone who says, I want to know what happened, the answer is, well, the gospel has got to Rome. Paul is announcing God as King and Jesus as Lord under Caesar’s nose, openly and unhindered, end of conversation, you know, that is the story of the gospel. But in telling that, Luke has used that as a platform to say, and here is Paul, and so please, Mr. Caesar on your throne, or whoever is your legal advisor, you know what to do. Frustratingly, we don’t know what they did.

Studio – John Dickson
Even without its religious significance, Acts is one of ancient history’s most valuable documents, providing insight into both the Greco-Roman world itself and how a tiny Jewish renewal movement won the heart of that world.
Hint: it wasn’t through money, celebrity, or power! 

 John Dickson:
You mentioned suffering earlier, and I guess I want to drill down on the way the Book of Acts almost says, I mean you can correct me if I’m wrong, almost says that the people of God can suffer shipwrecks and imprisonment and beating and, and yet the Christian message can still go forward. What can the church learn about that?

Tom Wright:
Yeah, that is undoubtedly the case, and of course that resonates not just in the book of Acts, but through Paul’s letters, through 1 Peter, through the book of Revelation, through things that Jesus said, you know, if you want to come after me,

John Dickson:
Oh, so it’s a very basic Christian idea, is it Tom?

Tom Wright:
It’s an extremely basic Christian idea, and of course it’s paradoxical, but it is rooted in the Judean people themselves, and back into what we call the Old Testament, that you have this sense that the people, uh, have suffered greatly, they go into exile, they’re in Babylon, and somehow, then astonishingly, they come back and get going again, and then in the period after that, they are persecuted, they are killed, they are tortured to death, et cetera, but they claim that God will vindicate them, and then new things happen, which they interpret as God vindicating them, indeed. And then all this reaches a peak with Jesus himself, and then the pattern reproduces. And of course, some early Christians weren’t happy about that. In 1 Peter, it looks as though some people have been saying, Hey, we thought Jesus had done all the suffering. How come we have to do it too? And Peter says, no, sorry, this is actually how the kingdom of God comes. And Paul classically in Romans eight and similar passages. And then his wonderful, wonderful rhetoric in second Corinthians 11, where he lists all he’s boasting that the Corinthians want him to say what a super apostle he is. I was preaching on this passage, um, around the first time that Donald Trump got elected and I was in New York just around the corner from Trump tower. And I said that Paul’s opponents had a slogan, which was make apostleship great again, which went down quite well with that congregation. And uh, and Paul says, no, no, no, no. Let me boast of all the things that make me an apostle. You know, I’ve been beaten up. I’ve been shipwrecked. I’ve been accused of this, that, and the other, um, had to, had to be let down over a wall and run away and all that stuff. And he is deliberately upending the whole narrative. And it seems to me that any intelligent skeptic reading all this stuff should say, um, there is actually a coherence about this. It isn’t just a way of saying, oh yeah, it’s tough but we usually come back again. That there is a kind of a deep, um, paradoxical logic about it. What in C. S. Lewis book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he calls deeper magic from before the dawn of time. You know, that when the suffering servant goes to his death, then actually The God who is revealing himself in and as the suffering servant brings about the whole renewal. That it’s as though evil in the world has to be drawn to one place and dealt with. And then the new things can happen. And then that’s how it has to go on working. So it isn’t just a sort of pragmatic, Oh, well, it seems to be happening. Not much we can do about it. That there is, there is a deep theological logic to it.

Undeceptions theme

Studio – John Dickson
Head to undeceptions.com to check out the extensive show notes Research Al has put together. And don’t forget to leave us a question—you can do it in text, but come on, leave us a voice record. We love your voice questions, and Producer Kaley may select you for our next Q&A episode.  See ya…

Undeceptions is hosted by me, John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne and directed by Mark Balboa Hadley. Alasdair Belling is a writer-researcher. Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. Lyndie Leviston remains my wonderful assistant. Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. Editing by Richard Hamwi. Our voice actors today was Yannick Lowry. Special thanks to our series sponsor Zondervan for making this Undeception possible. Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com – letting the truth out.